This is a rarity — a collaboration between four craft distillers who decided to blend their individual Bourbons together at the urging of Brett Pontoni, the whisky specialist at Binny’s Beverage Depot in Chicago. Four Kings uses Bourbons from Mississippi River Distilling Company, Few Spirits, Journeyman Distillery, and two varieties from Corsair Artisan Distillery: its regular Bourbon recipe and an experimental one using smoked wheat as the flavoring grain.

The result is a whiskey with a smooth and complex nose with hints of smoke, honey, straw, dark chocolate, and caramel. The taste is spicy and dry with cinnamon, honey, vanilla, and aromatic top notes of butterscotch and caramel candy. Think of it as a two-story house with the spicier notes on the ground floor and the aromatic notes on the second story. The finish is dry, aromatic, and light with good complexity and pepper lingering on the bottom. (April, 2014)